Tuesday, March 13, 2007

It's 2pm Eastern Daylight Time

... 3pm in Halifax and 3:30pm in Newfoundland. And God knows what time it is in Microsoft Outlook. Users are reporting 'nightmare' experiences with calendar appointments in Microsoft Outlook with the introduction of early daylight saving. While most Windows installations have been patched, Outlook requires various highly specific fixes depending upon configuration, whether users are running Exchange server, whether they use Web Access, or whether they have recurring appointments in their calendar.

Microsoft's own documentation on the issue has this wonderful advice:

To minimize confusion for users during the extended DST period, follow these steps:

1. When a meeting is organized during the extended DST period, write the correct meeting time in the subject line or the body of the message. For example, include the following text in the subject line or the body of the message: Project planning meeting – 8:30 a.m. PST

2. Consider any calendar items in the extended DST period to be suspect. If you are not sure, verify the correct time with the organizer. [emphasis added]

3. To help keep track of the calendar items that are scheduled during the extended DST period, print your weekly calendars for the extended DST period.

The world's largest software company can't reliably keep a calendar application consistent, despite a bloated 100MB of software. With half my appointments now at the wrong time, and half correct, but no way to tell them apart, I'm just really glad I don't live in Saskatchewan.

On a related note, I see that my cellphone is reporting a different time depending upon what cell I'm in. Seems like some have been updated and others not.